tonight a campaign style trump rally in alabama, the crowd chanting lock her up. speaking of health care, senator john mccain has delivered what

could be the fatal blow to the gop effort which was led by his best friend lindsey graham. and why does the secretary of health and human services need to travel on so many private planes paid for by the people? a gop ethics lawyer says he should be fired and sent helm on the next greyhound bus. we'll talk to him tonight as the 11th hour gets under way. and on this friday night, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 246 of the trump administration. and tonight the president spoke to a ralably in huntsville, alabama saying he really felt at home. >> these are alabama values. i understand the people of alabama. i feel like i'm from alabama, frankly. isn't it a little weird when a guy who list on fifth avenue in the most beautiful apartment you've ever seep comes to alabama and alabama loves that guy?

i mean, it's crazy. >> as you can gather from that bit right there, it was right out of the campaign. donald trump bragged about the crowd size, his electoral college victory. he called russia a hoax. we heard about crooked hillary. that led to chants of lock her up. the president said the wall is happening, believe me. he said the news media are fake and the crowd booed john mccain. he even took a swing at cal inkaepernick and said football isn't the same anymore. more on all of that if we can get to all of that later, but the last bit booing john mccain that followed a portion of the president's speech where he blamed mng contain for the death of repeal and replace last time and said the bill just might get through without him this time. but he assured the kroid repeal and replace will get passed. >> for seven years i've been hearing repeal and replace. so i'm very much involved. they like to say well, mr.

trump, president trump sat in the oval office and didn't -- i'm on the phone screaming at people all day long for weeks. they gave me a list of ten people that were absolute nos. these are ten republican senators. now, john mccain's -- john mccain's list -- [ crowd booing ] >> john mccain was not on the list, so that was a totally unexpected thing. terrible. honestly, terrible. i call up the different people, well, mr. president, could you have dinner with my wife, myself, my family, my kids, my you see cousins, my uncles. and i'd like to talk to you about it. okay. so they come over with the family. pictures all night. everything. okay. and i'll get a vote or i won't. whatever. but brutal. brutal. you know, you know what that is, folks, right? it's called brutality. >> the hoax for this latest repeal and replace bill, graham/cassidy, went all but

dark today because john mccain came out and said he couldn't support it. he said it should be something both parties agree on ideally. he released a statement explaining his decision saying in part i cannot in good conscious vote for graham/cassidy proposeel. i believe we could do better working together, republicans and democrats and have not really tried. nor could i support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will affect insurance premiums and how many people will be helped or hurt by it. his no comes despite his close friendship with senator graham of south carolina who wrote today on twitter, my friendship with mccain is not based on how he votes, but respect for how he's lived his life and the person he is. he went on to say he respectfully disagreed with mccain's decision. mccain joined senator rand paul of kentucky as the no votes on the record so far. nbc news whip count has ten other republican senators as undecided or unannounced, but most eyes are most closely fixed

on two other senators who joined mccain in voting no last time. susan collins of maine, lisa murkowski of alaska. trump told the crowd tonight health care is what brought him to alabama. he said when he called his friend senator luther strange in the last vote, strange told him he had his back. >> luther did that for me and i remembered luther. we have to be loyal in life, you know, there's something called loyalty with these folks. and i might have made a mistake. and i'll be honest. i might have made a mistake, because, you know, here is the story. if luther doesn't win, they're not going to say we picked up 25 points in a very short period of time. they're going to say donald trump, the president of the united states, was unable to pull his candidate across the line. it is a terrible, terrible

moment for trump. and you know what? and i told luther, i have to say this, if his opponent wins, i'm going to be here campaigning like hell for him. >> our lead-off panel tonight to talk about all of this, whether they like it orment, christine that bell an tony is with us, michael lesson is back with us, and here with us in new york, steve kornacki, who is being our msnbc national political correspondent. steve, you and i just had the treat of watching that sitting here together in new york. perhaps sharing a chuckle over his i am taking of a newscaster voice there. i must say perhaps there have been others, but this was the only endorsement speech i've ever heard that left room, dangled the possibility for defeat. he admitted that he might have made a mistake in endorsing

strange, as if to save face on the part of the endorser. >> yeah. it's striking how sort of conventional political strategy as we understand it, if you look at this speech and say he didn't do this, he failed to do that, why did he do this. but i think we've got to emphasize and we've got to remember, that's how he got himself elected as president. this is not a speech -- my god, i presidential candidate, he forgot to do this, he didn't show proper respect to this person. this has an appeal with a certain segment of the electorate. and when you're talking about a run identify off here in alabama. you're talking about alabama republican voters. he won the primary there by a two to one margin. he beat hillary clinton about a two to one margin. his approval rating with republicans in alabama right now sits around 90%. so you are talking about the heart and soul of the trump base ask that kind of performance tonight, i know we ook at it and say, boy, if i was writing a script for a politician it

wouldn't go that way, but what he did tonight that's what's worked with voters in the past. >> we have an entire segment on this rest, this test coming up in alabama with steve later in this same hour. the other candidate in the race is right out of a clint eastwood movie, at least his name. judge roy moore. you just can't make this up. and it's going to be an interesting race. we have a lot more to say about it later. christina, i know you think tonight was something of a 2018 test. why is that? >> sure. well, steve is exactly right, first of all. trump scram bells all conventional political wisdom. but if you're one of the eight house republicans sitting here in california who the democrats have to win at least for our five of these seats here next year to win control of the house. you're looking at that and wondering to yourself do i want the president's endorsement, do i want the president to campaign for me, do i want the president to come out with fund-raising. the republicans are trying to see what the president will do

for them. so it's a test of that. the electric tort in alabama are very different from the electric tort particularly here in orange county, california, right where a lot of changes here, changing demographics. a lot of people are registered as independence. so the question is really what trump can bring to the table for the republican party. and the idea when you're getting campaigned for by the president you want a headline about yourself, right. the next day's newspaper is going to say candidate x was endorsed by the president for this. but instead the headlines are all about the things we're talking about, north korea, russia, health care vote. that's not always great for the candidate. it might work for donald trump, but it doesn't necessarily work for the person on the ballot. >> as i said, he also managed to work in colin kaepernick tonight though not by name. michael lesson, i want to play for you another snip pet from this. the cooked hillary came back tonight. the lock her up chant and he also found a way to we've in

alabama's own jeff sessions. important for two reasons. sessions leaving the senate to join the trump cabinet is what created the vacancy that senator strange is filling prior to the special election, one. two, senator sessions, he of the public humiliation of serving in the trump cabinet, having recused himself on russia. so here is lock her up into the president's invoking jeff sessions' name tonight. >> if crooked hillary got elected, you would not have a second amendment, believe me. you'd be handing in your rifles. you'd be saying here, here they are. you'd go like. you'd be turning over your rifles. [ lock her up, lock her up, lock her up, lock her up, lock her

up ] >> you've got to speak to jeff sessions about that. >> michael lesson, what in your view did we witness tonight and how must mr. mueller and the 16 or 17 cocounsel's he has hired view an event like this tonight? >> you know, the president, of course, really happening it up. that was the perfect clip and making the gesture. what am i gonna do? usually these rally speeches are sort of the greatest hits. tonight, though, we had new stuff. so rocket man tonight was little rocket man. and the president even taking away the fourth wall and saying i brand people. that's what i do. and said he won't give examples because now he's friend with some of these people, but you mentioned the russia hoax and as far as snu stuff, the see

through wall. so the president saying that when they built the wall on the border and the wall is being built, will be built and he says that because of the cat i puts, the drug dealers -- >> he made it sound like it was a new code. he said because they throw heavy 100 pound of drugs up over the wall and they could fall on someone's head and kill them, the wall must now be see through. >> he was talking about renovation and at one point he says this is what i'm best at is building things. i've only been in politics for a short time. i've been building things foreverment on the tax code he says that there's going to be a tax plan out next week and he brought back one of my favorite phrases from the campaign. during the campaign it didn't matter what the president was talking about. it could be about the pentagon. it could be about a syria policy. he'd always say you're gonna love it. and he brought that back with the tax code tonight. and then on the nfl, it's not

just colin kaepernick and saying that the owners should fire players who. >> take a knee. >> yeah. he also was saying that football has gone soft and was saying that there aren't hard enough hits. so the president here was just throwing out anything that was on his mind, including calling out the extremely reluctant chief of staff, general john kelly, throw out a little nickname for him that i hadn't heard before. he called him four star as he was coming up. and general kelly, no did you mean my, when he got up there, the president tried to get him to say something, but general kelly made the give it up motion for the president, which people did, and general kelly escaped off the podium. but what we see here is the president entertaining, the president getting to stretch out and run. and brian, he feels good at the end of this week. he mentioned that his polls are

up a little bit. he's been happening up the coverage of his deal with democrats. and we're told that world leaders in new york for the u.n. general assembly are starting to get used to him. they think that he hasn't been as bad as they thought. and of course, he's the host and so they're all sucking up to him. and something that he does after his speeches is he goes and seeks approval from the people around him. so the president's feeling and fine as my grandma would say and we could really see it. >> our friend mike just introduced a frequent case rosy scenario to our broadcast. bring us back to washington today and what's the short version for folks who have been busy about where health care stands right now. >> the republican repeal and replace plan that donald trump was talking about there looks like it is basically been finished off by what john mccain did today. you showed the names there right now, all eyes on susan collins,

lisa murkowski. both of them were no votes the first time around. neither of them has much political snen it i have that i can see to turn around and support it this time. if one of them decides they're against this now, that would sink this thing. and certainly with john mccain coming out sort of preemptively and making this announcement today, a lot of people think if there was any hesitation on murkowski's part, on colin's part, mccain has given them extra cover now to go out and vote against this. a lot of people look at this too and say is this a situation where republicans in the senate were sort of forced into this, forced into this last minute attempt by donald trump and how he reacted to the last failure, because he said the last failure was not a team failure. it was not a republican party failure. he told republican voters it was their failure, mitch mcconnell and republicans in washington. so by bringing it back and maybe failing again, are they trying to establish that, hey, look, this is something that can't be done right now in this form. >> christ yeena, michael

lesson's broader point is absolutely correct. this was jet fuel tonight for donald trump. love him or hate him. this is what he feeds off. and he cannot be accused of changing his game because mueller and two congressional committees are breathing down his neck and asking for every piece of paper not put away in a drawer in the west wing. >> yeah. no. that's all exactly right. he definitely feeds off the crowds. and being look, a lot of politicians do. some more than others. we've all seen bill clinton on the campaign trail. president trump is in a different category. and when it comes to health care just on the last point, you know, i think a lot of republicans are still very weary because he stood with a bunch of house republicans in the rose garden and championed the measure and talked about how great it was and then called it mean and called them mean not long after that. and to steve's point, when he's talking about the republican

party, he's not using the term we, us republicans. it's just like him saying, you know, i'll go campaign for whoever wins this alabama race. it's them. and that's a difficult position for the republican party. for susan collins and lisa murkowski, what do they have to loses voting against this? they've already voted against it once. it didn't go forward because of them. there's no political captain involved there. so when you watch a speech like this on president trump on a turf like this where people are really riling him up and cheering, i think it proves to everybody that he is not going to change. this is the president that we're going to see for his entire presidency. >> michael lesson, give us a brief last word on what we can expect i know aside from the unexpected, next week in washington? >> well, the president got to enjoy this hour and 20 minutes, which is great a beat out there. but you are totally right to talk about mueller. keep other eyes on the baltimore. the two things that matter, the

only story that matters, north korea which you're going to be talking about later on the broadcast and mueller. you were right to bring him up because brian, add it all up, there was so much news out of mueller this week that was so daunting for the white house, so much evidence that he's going much deeper and broader than people think and the news this week, new watergate residents for this probe. news this week that because of that warrant that they had on paul manafort, that there's months and perhaps years of tapes. and even though it wasn't directly of the president, we know that it is possible, and i think likely, that donald trump's voice is on those tapes of paul manafort. if you're in the white house, you always want to know what you're defending against. now they realize that there is a warehouse of material that they don't quite know what it is. >> our great thanks to our lead-off panel on a friday night

in september. the always excellent. thanks to the three of you. coming up after our first break, the president going back to calling the russia investigation a hoax. twice today, just as we're learning more as we were just saying, about the heat robert mueller is bringing on this white house. plus why the newest threat from north korea's leader is different from all the others. a lot to get to. the hour is just getting under way on a friday night. stay with us.

this shouldn't be handled now, but i'm going to handle it because we have to handle it.

little rocket man. we're going to do it because we really have no choice. he may be smart, he may be strategic and he may be totally crazy, but you know what? no matter what he is, we're going to handle it, folks. believe me. >> president trump isn't cooling off any of that rhetoric against north korea or its leader. the exact opts, in fact, as you heard tonight. words like the words we just heard have prompted an unprecedented response from north korean leader kim jong-un. in a personal statement kim responded to trump's promise to totally destroy north korea with his own promise of the highest level of hard line counter measure in history. north korean foreign minister later said that hard line counter measure might mean an h bomb test in the pacific. trump responded to that threat as well tonight. >> now he's talking about a massive weapon exploding over

the ocean, pacific ocean. and i want to tell you something, and i'm sure he's listening because he watches every word. and i guarantee you one thing, he's watching us like he never watched anybody before. that i can tell you. maybe something gets worked out and maybe it doesn't, but i can tell you one thing, you are protected. okay? you are protected. nobody is going to mess with our people [applause] >> well, today the la times reports that trump's own top advisers, including national security adviser h.r. mcmaster warned him against antagonizing kim jong-un. the times reports it this way. quote, some advisers now worry that the escalating war of words has pushed the impasse with north korea into a new and dangerous phase that threatens to derail the months' long effort to squeeze pyongyang's economy through sapgs to force kim to the negotiating table. with us tonight to talk about this, two terrific guests. bill richard son, former new

mexico governor and ambassador to the u.n. he successfully negotiated for the release of americans held in north korea. and our friend the author pulitzer prize winning buy grafr and historian, john mee chem. gentlemen, welcome to you both. ambassador, i've wanted to have you on since this most recent crisis. we have kim calling trump yesterday a gangster and not in a nice way. and we have trump returning the insults as recently as a few hours ago. where is this going to get us and what's your fear about the inability to walk these back? >> well, this is a very frightening situation. the most heightened hostility between north korea and the united states that i've ever seen. you know, i've negotiated with the north koreans many times. i've been there eight times. they take these personal attacks extremely seriously.

now, i'm not defending kim jong-un. i mean, he's acted irresponsibly with all these missile tests. but i remember in the past when his father was called a dwav, but i think by president bush, recently i was very mad at the north koreans over their treatment of otto warmbier, who came back deceased. >> yeah. >> the treatment of him of the and i said something like kim jong-un had acted like a brat. and i heard from the north koreans. so i think this level of hostility, personal hostility, my worry is that it could backfire. i don't think kim jong-un is suicidal and he's going to attempt something drastic, but the worry i have is a miscalculation on their part. up, a south korean fishing boat getting shot at or an over flight, an american plane. there are other players here, japan, south korea, us, china.

somebody may -- there's enormous political pressure on those leaders to do something very tense situation. that's my worry. and my last worry is that it makes a path to diplomacy to negotiations, to talks, which i think is the only way out of this impasse very difficult right now because of this personal an months sti and these insults. >> ambassador, any question we're just going to have to live with a nuclear north korea? >> well, i don't think that should be our policy, but realistically, i think we have to start looking at freezing their missile activity, freezing their nuclear activity, finding ways that their icbm's don't threat ep the united states. that's going to require a negotiation. but the big problem, brian, is we have no dialogue. we won't talk to the north koreans unless they did he nuclear eyes. and the north koreans say no. i think the fist step is just talking. what do you want? what do i want?

like a meeting. and then you look short range at perhaps a potential freeze of the north korean. they're going to want sanctions lifted, economic assistance. but i think it's the only way out of a very tense situation that affects american troops, american security, south korean people, japanese people, enormous tension in a very vital part of the world, and that's the korean peninsula. >> so john meacham, as a man of history, there's a lot of hit here. there's at korean war which never officially ended. there's the 38th parallel and the american family for whom it's endellible because their dads fought in that terrible, nasty, nas any u.s. effort. and there's also the pictures you and i grew up with from places i mentioned in the broadcast last night, the by key knee atoll comes to mind, the nuclear tests over the pacific ocean. the terrific mushroom clouds. this was all new back then.

can you believe there is talk of an actual test over the water at the tip of an icbm? >> craw. i mean, a lot of us thought on christmas day 1991 that this chapter had closed with the end of the soviet union. >> yep. >> and now we're in a remarkable place. there's a certain historical symmetry. president trump tonight was speaking from huntsville, alabama, which was a critical cold war site in the american south. extraordinary number of good bit of our rocket technology, a good bit of our ballistic missiles came out of huntsville, alabama. and i think that one of the things that this crisis is going to have to show us to go to the ambassador's point, is as henry kissinger has said of the middle east, is this a crisis that can be resolved or is it simply a problem that has to be managed. and i think that in the sefbt

year life of the nuclear age i think we've been remarkable fortunate that as few nations have managed to nuclear eyes. it's rising from year to year, but i do think we're in this very odd position where we have a nuclear threat in a regional conflict, which is an old prenuclear age question. that's what china is looking at. china doesn't want north koreans rolling across their border. >> no. >> and i think the place to watch for whether this turns outed well or not is perhaps less washington and more bay skring. >> john, a quick question, serious question for people who have come upon this late. how is it that the only nation to have used nuclear weapons kind of tries to decide who can and cannot have them and certainly tries to pass judgment on it? >> we became the world's most

significant super power in the history of civilization, not to be too grand on a friday evening in august, you could say in july of 45 when the bomb worked. robert on the part enhierm stood at loss almows and said, quoted the hin do you saying i have become death, the destroyer of worlds. so many is given and much is expected. and we've been given an enormous amount of power to end life. and i think that we by and large have lived up to that covenant, but it's a test every day. >> we knew this topic and this segment were going to be weighty matters and we could not have had two better gentlemen to talk about them. thank you both so much for joining us. we would love to have you both back. sadly i know this topic is not going to go away. gentlemen, thank you. another break for our coverage. coming up on stage in alabama

tonight, the president spoke out about the russia investigation. we'll show you what he said when the 11th hour continues.

by the way, folks, just in case you're curious. no, russia did not help me. okay? russia. i call it the russian hoax. >> welcome back to our broadcast. capping a week of revelation after revelation on the russia

investigation, president trump said those words in huntsville, alabama, tonight. he also broke a 38-day twitter silence just on this topping, denying that any of it is real. he said this morning, quote, the russia hoax continues. now it adds on -- now it's ads on facebook. what about the totally biassed and dishonest media coverage in favor of crooked hillary. following that up with this, the greatest influence over our election was the fake news media screaming for crooked hillary clinton. next, she was a bad candidate. facebook has acknowledged that it did in fact inadvertently sell $100,000 worth of ads to russian interests. they've promised to turn over documents to congress and the special counsel investigating russian interference. and founder mark zuckerberg delivered a personal statement addressing steps facebook will take to keep it from happening again. also today, the department of homeland security notified the 21 states targeted by russian

hackers. officials say the kremlin tried but failed to hack voter databases. tonight we welcome to the broadcast danny sa val less. also joining us hill ka pure. gentlemen, thank you very much for coming on. sa hill, the president decided to go there this morning on the russian hoax and then this evening in front of a red meat crowd. what does it mean that he figures why not? >> it's an awful lot to be calling a hoax, right, brienl. we've had a lot of revelations this week -- >> just this week. >> just this week including a report out today that 21 states, their election systems were attempted to be infiltrated. even if they weren't broken into, there were revelations involving paul manafort, his former campaign chairman. i think what's driving all of this, what i've heard from people who are familiar with the president's thinking is that he

feels insulted every time this is brought up. he feels like he's not being dpifb enough credit for his election victory, which he believes was historic, unexpected. the latter certainly true. i think that's where it's all coming from. and i think the fact that hillary clinton is back on the national spotlight with her book tour i think is axe waiting all of these things in his mind. >> he went all the way back through it tonight. they said there was no path to 270, but i got them to 306 -- i'll get a phone call reminding me what the number was. danny, if donald trump is your client, if you are either a white house counsel in charge of defending the institution as much as the man or personal counsel in charge of defending the man, what are you saying about his use of the russia hoax again today? >> nobody one, don't dare the special counsel. don't ever dare anybody in the doj to make their case stronger against you by calling it a hoax. and it's ironic that he calls it

a hoax, the facebook ads issue, because legally speaking, it's probably least likely to be a hoax. and i use the word probably because facebook was served with a warrant. as an attorney i've dealt with trying to subpoena things from facebook. they say no way. facebook takes the position that when it comes to disclosing this kind of information, the fourth amendment and a case out of the sixth circuit requires a warrant and probable cause. and that means a neutral, detached magistrate, a federal magistrate had to make a finding that it was more likely than not that there is evidence of a crime and that a warrant should issue. so it is somewhat odd that president trump calls it a hoax, because in the case of the facebook adds, at least, it is very likely that a judge signed off on exactly that issue, that there may be evidence of a crime there. >> i always like to mention at this point i have a family who works at facebook accident which i always try to work in when

facebook becomes the topic of our conversation. what does it mean that 21 states had the russians or russian interests at least knocking on the door of their i.t. systems trying to get to voter databases? and remember, the civics part of this is our election was interfered with. >> this is the new world we're living in right now. and my big question is are we ready for 2018, 2020? this is going to happen again. the "associated press" report likened this to the burglar who circled the house who didn't actually break in. president trump has this voter fraud commission looking at voter fraud. maybe we should be looking into something like this which clearly all the cybersecurity experts say is the biggest threat we're facing. >> there's no reason to think that it has gaup away. danny, of all the things we learned again, these weeks last as long as a year, what's the one thing about the mueller effort that you learned this week that kind of piqued your

interests? >> definitely the facebook warpts. >> okay. >> for me, that took it out of the realm of maybe there's collusion, maybe one of his advisers had tax problems or dealings with the russian government. but the existence of a warrant, and i hate to go back to what i just talked about, means that somewhere out there there was a determination of probable cause. and that is very significant. that goes beyond just the doj or special counsel saying there might be something out there. now a court has gotten involved. >> and now mueller's team is, we believe, at full capacity, 16, 17, cocounsel's. >> right. >> all if not -- most if not all experts in their field, the kind of lawyers that have been weaving in and outed of private practice and public life. >> no doubt. it's an a team. and i think the way they have handled the manafort situation suggests that. there was a no knock warrant. that's something that you can

only get if you show that there's probable cause that the person is going to destroy evidence inside there. and, you know, prosecutors have talked about how the way they've handled this, suggesting, telling him, telling manafort that they're going to indict him is what you do when you're trying to get a witness to flip, to rat on their colleagues, to divulge information. now they're probably looking for a bigger fish. who is a bigger fish than the president's former campaign chairman. >> and imagine the lock gets picked. there are feds standing in your living am room. they're taking pictures of the clothing in your closet, all in the predawn hours of the morning of the our great thanks to both gentlemen joining us for this segment. thank you very much. coming up with the president throwing his weight behind one of these two republican candidates in this alabama senate race, what does it mean for the vote next week? steve kornacki is back with us. he's brought his big board. all of it when we come right

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listerine® bring out the bold™ welcome back to our broadcast. as we mentioned earlier, president trump was in alabama tonight to swing momentum for jeff sessions' old senate seat away from republican party favorite roy moore, judge roy moore and towards trump's choice in the race, luther strange. he is the current incumbent. back with us as promised, steve kornacki our national political correspondent at the big board with a heck of a graphic there to break down whether trump's rally was enough to get the voters out on tuesday. beautiful job with that, steve. >> yeah. war eagle and roll tied. we've got trump. we've got steve bannon here. and why do we have steve bannon here? because what is so fascinating about what donald trump is trying to pull off here in alabama is he's trying to convince his base of voters, the bannon base of the party to go for the establishment candidate. strange is the establishment

candidate. that's who trump is behind. roy moore is the anti-establishment candidate. that's who steve bannon is behind. so trump is trying to get his base to go for the establishment candidate. what does that chal helping look like? well, this was the preliminary. remember, it's a run-off election on tuesday. the the top two, more and strange advanced from the preliminary a few weeks ago. mo brooks, he's eliminated. he got 20%. two things to keep in mind. one, he has since endorsed roy moore so roy moore got the most votes in the preliminary. the candidate who was eliminated has endorsed roy moore. also, where was that rally tonight? huntsville, alabama. guess where that is? that's mo brooks' congressional district. no coincidence there at all. that is probably going to be the area in alabama that decides this race. luther stlapg, he is running from behind. moor is the insurgent candidate, the anti-establishment candidate. trump is trying to make a case to the grassroots that it's okay

to go with an establishment kanld. if there is somebody, though, who can pull that off, it probably is donald trump. look at this. nationalel we talk all the time his approval rating, it is nothing to write home about these days. in alabama it's stronger, but still 55%. that's not great. but alabama republicans, and they're the only ones who are going to be voting on tuesday, he's sitting at almost 90% with them. he won that primary in alabama by almost two to one last year. this is the heart of trump country higher. so it's an interesting test on tuesday, can donald trump get those voters, some of the most loyal trump voters there are out there anywhere in the country, can he get them to resist the lure of the anti-establishment candidate roy moore and to go with the guy that the establishment wants. fascinate lg dynamic there. >> fas nighting. ufr right, steve. thank you. great numbers tonight. learned a lot there. steve kornacki. thank you so much. another break for us. we're back with the trouble in the trump cabinet tonight.

welcome back to our

broadcast. a member of the trump cabinet is in trouble for his frequent use of private jets, and toebt the white house did not go out of its way to defend him. politico reported that tom price, the former georgia republican congressman who is now secretary of health and human services, has traveled by private plane at least 24 times in the last five months. the nmt or general of his own cabinet department is reviewing his travel. tonight the white house said it doesn't sign off for cabinet travel. referred reporters back to hss for comment. the private plane travel reportedly racked up a tab around $300,000 and it includes a flight from d.c. to philadelphia. two cities that, let's remember, are fewer than 150 miles apart, linked by highways, commercial flights and the closest thing our country has to high-speed rail travel.

price's office says they use charters when commercial travel is not feasible. let's talk about it. with us tonight is our own expert on ethics, richard painter who was the chief white house ethics lawyer under president george w. bush. richard, let's establish private jets are great. if you can afford one, they're fantastic. you're free to fly them all you want before government service. you can fly them all you want if you can afford it after government service. what is the ethical problem flying them while you work for the government? >> well, the ethical problem for me is that i'm a taxpayer and i don't appreciate having my tax money used to pay cabinet officers around on private jets $20,000 a pop some of these flights cost. they ought to go commercial air. and that's what we did in the bush administration. and the bush white house kept a close eye on that. i was involved in that.

and we made sure that people were not using charter planes for anything unless it was absolutely necessary and travel to a part of the country that was inaccessible with commercial aircraft, last-minute type of situation like that. but very, very few circumstances would we approve of someone using a jet like this and then billing it to the government. and we kept an eye of what's going on with the cabinet officers. the white house can't just refer this over to hhs. the secretary of hhs reports to the president of the united states and there should be some supervision here. this is just a waste of money. they're supposed to be fiscal conservative. they say they are, but they're just blowing our money right out the door. and this is not the only cabinet member. we've had steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, he's running around wanting to go on his honeymoon on a jet and he actually took a jet out to view the eclipse and i guess inspect the gold at fort knox.

it's getting -- it's excessive. and with respect to price, we've had other problems with him. he was trading in to come when he was a member of congress. he was trading in health care company stocks while he was sitting on the committee that was passing health care legislation. and he has no sense of the appearances that come from this type of conduct. and the same with a lot of other people in the administration. it's really quite shocking. i think he needs to be fired and put on the first greyhound bus back home. >> richard, i'm asked all the time some version of but who do we see about this? who is going to do something about this? who is going to raise the complaint? is it on you and the group of lawyers you've put together who file legal cases? where does this go, other than the inspectors general of a cabinet department, do you have faith in those men and women to carry out this all the way to

the end? >> well, they'll find what they find and make recommendations, but it's the president of the united states who has the responsibility to shut this down. and as i say, if this was happening in the bush administration, he would have been fired. we would not have put up with someone using taxpayer money this way. taxpayers work hard for the money that they turn over to the government. tax are high in this country. and we expect something for our money. and this is unacceptable. you know, he could have taken an am track train to mill devil than fly a jet up there, a corporate jet, bill that to the taxpayerment it's just an insult to the american people. so the bottom line is this is the president's responsibility to take care of it and if he won't, congress needs to have hearings and investigate this. and if congress wants to sit on their can and do nothing, well, we may just have to boot them on out of there because they're

certainly not fiscal conservative people who put up with this. they just want to waste our money. >> richard, i have to ask you because of your years in the law, how will mueller and mueller's team and the two congressional investigations view the president's choice to go back today to the plot line that russia is a hoax? >> well, it's obviously not a hoax. i mean, we now find that the russians had multiple ways that they were trying to throw this election in favor of president trump. it's clearly not a hoax. every time he says that he makes it appear that he is trying to undermine the investigation and in fact, he has been trying to undermine the investigation. he fired the fbi director to obstruct the investigation. he told his son to lie to obstruct the investigation. you know, we're getting fed up with this. i've been a republican for 30 years. i would like to see a good republican president, but this

is not acceptable to allow a foreign power to infiltrate our elections like this and then just go in front of that crowd down there and say it's a hoax. he's just making a fool of himself. and that's not what we expect out of a president. and the only person who is laughing right now is vladimir putin. >> richard painter, thank you so much. as always, for coming on the broadcast when we call you, especially when there's a topic like there is tonight from the law in the news. richard painter, our great thanks. one last item before we go tonight. tonight's advisory from the national weather service to people in a heavily populated section of puerto rico warns of an extremely dangerous situation. evacuate now, they've been told. your lives are in danger. they're talking about the predicted total failure of a 90-year-old cam that holds water back from an area of about 70,000 people.

the problem is there's no phones, no social media, 95% of the cell towers are gone. there's no power. there's no television, no radio. no way to tell everyone what might be coming. as of last night the governor of puerto rico hadn't been able to reach out to his own parents on the island to see if they were okay. it's getting dire and it's going to get much worse, sadly, in terms of contamination, the need for food, water, power and medical care. the 3.5 million american citizens on puerto rico need help. and perhaps at this point after this disaster it's helpful to point this out. puerto riconess have always served the u.s. military in disproportionate numbers relative to their population in the united states. put another way, they have always been at the front of the line to answer the call, and now the call has gone out to help

puerto rico. that is our broadcast on a friday night. and for this week. thank you so much for being here with us. have a good weekend and good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. tonight on "all in." >> no. >> senator john mccain rides again. >> he can't have everything. boy oh boy. >> tonight the reaction from happy democrats, angry donors, and a late-night talk show host. >> we haven't seen this many people come forward to speak out against a bill since cosby. >> as john mccain deals president trump yet another setback. >> nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.